BAGHDAD // With the prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, warning that it will take two years to solve Iraq's electricity supply problems, protesters have vowed to expand a campaign of street demonstrations until the government remedies a chronic shortage of vital services.
Demonstrators took to the streets in Ramadi, in Anbar province yesterday, after outbreaks of civil unrest in the southern cities of Basra and Nasariyah over crippling power cuts. Further demonstrations, to be held before the end of the week, are being planned for Baghdad and Kut. Two protesters were shot and killed by the security forces in Saturday's march on the provincial council headquarters in Basraduring, while 17 police officers were wounded in Monday's confrontation in Nasariyah, when they were pelted with stones. Security forces there utilised a water cannon and riot gear, after they were ordered to use non-lethal crowd control methods.
Ala Allawi, an independent political analyst who is helping to organise the Kut protest, said: "The Iraqi people have finally come to life, they have moved at last. They have been silent for the past seven years, they have given the government time to make progress, but instead all they have seen from the politicians is corruption, stealing and failure. Now they have run out of patience. These demonstrations are going to carry on."
Iraq's electricity minister, Karim Waheed, tended his resignation on Monday evening after becoming a focal point for the unrest, with protesters demanding that he stand down. Mr Maliki yesterday said he continued to support Mr Waheed, a British-educated technocrat who served under Saddam Hussein, and that he had not yet accepted his offer to quit. "His resignation letter is still on my desk. I will look into it," Mr Maliki said during a Baghdad news conference. He also cautioned that there was no quick fix to electricity shortages, with Iraq's infrastructure damaged by years of war, sanctions and under-investment, and still woefully inadequate to provide consistent power. Government critics say a more efficient administration would have come up with quicker solutions.
"Frankly, nobody should expect that the electricity problems will be solved for another two years because the power stations being built by Siemens and GE [General Electric] will take two years to complete at least," he said. Siemens, a German firm, and GE, a US company, have been given contracts to build new electricity generators for the national grid. Politicians of all sides have given their support to the popular protests, some with reservations. Maysoon Damaluji, a spokeswoman for the Iraqiyya list, which emerged as the main rival to Mr Maliki's rule in the March elections, called the demonstrations an "outpouring against government failure".
"It is good that the Iraqi people have now come out to demand their rights from the government," she said. "Iraqiyya supports the people in this, and we believe they should continue to push the government to provide them with the basic services they deserve." Khalid al Assadi, of Mr Maliki's State of Law alliance, said it was a constitutional right to hold peaceful demonstrations and that there should be an inquiry into the use of live ammunition against the protesters in Basra.
However, he also said that "political actors" were at work, with Mr Maliki's rivals driving the protests and trying to undermine his bid to retain post of prime minister. "While I support the protesters' rights, there are other political parties who are pushing normal demonstrations into violent attacks on government buildings and the security forces," he said. Mohammad Abdullah, a port worker from Basra who participated in the Saturday demonstration, said he would take to the streets again and urged the country to follow suit. He also defended the crowd's tactics, which included stone throwing and damaging government buildings. Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, described the anger of demonstrators as "extraordinary".
"If we had been quiet and peaceful they would simply ignore us," Mr Abdullah said, still furious about the chronic lack of electricity. Some parts of Basra only get one hour a day. "The government has listened, the media has listened precisely because there was some anger and violence." The protests began in Basra, 550 km south of Baghdad, amid temperatures in excess of 50C and soaring humidity.
Under such conditions, air conditioning and refrigerators for food are essential, not luxuries. "The only way I can get cool water for my family is to buy blocks of ice on the street," Mr Abdullah said, explaining tha he had sold his air-conditioning units last year because there was no power to run them. "Each ice block is US$10 and I need two a day because they melt so quickly. I earn $700 a month in my job, so if you add that up, I'd have to spend almost my entire salary just to have cold water to drink.
"For that reason, we will continue these demonstrations for as long as it takes." nlatif@thenational.ae
